With a nod to its Shakespearean roots, the Old Globe Theatre announced Monday that it has chosen Barry Edelstein, a wide-ranging director-producer and head of the Shakespeare Initiative at New York City’s renowned Public Theater, as its artistic director.

Edelstein, who officially takes the post Nov. 1, will oversee the Globe’s programming. His hiring returns the 77-year-old Balboa Park institution to the dual leadership arrangement in place at most big regional theaters.

Edelstein will work alongside Michael G. Murphy, who was appointed managing director in April.

Barry Edelstein

Artistic director-designate, Old Globe Theatre

Age: 47

Education: Tufts University, Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar)

Present position: Director of the Shakespeare Initiative, Public Theater, New York City

Rare company: Barry Edelstein will be the first individual to take the title of Globe artistic director in several years, and only the fourth to actually oversee its programming in the theater's 77-year history.

Founding director Craig Noel (who died in 2010) led the theater for more than four decades until hiring Jack O’Brien as artistic chief in 1981. When O’Brien left in 2008, Darko Tresnjak and Jerry Patch shared the title briefly until Patch’s departure. After Tresnjak exited in 2009, CEO/executive producer Louis G. Spisto continued to handle all programming until his resignation last December to become an independent producer.

The announcement — which comes after a yearlong, nationwide search — also caps a period of major change at San Diego's flagship theater, including the departure of CEO/executive producer Louis G. Spisto last December.

Edelstein, a New Jersey native and former Rhodes Scholar, heads up all Shakespeare programming at the Public Theater, the nonprofit powerhouse founded by Joseph Papp in 1954. That includes Shakespeare in the Park, the free summer festival that has become one of New York City’s signature cultural events.

He also has championed such projects as the Public’s “Mobile Unit,” which takes the Bard’s works into such places as prisons, homeless shelters and centers for at-risk youths.

Edelstein, who is married with two young children, joined the Public’s leadership in 2007 after several years of working on theater and TV/film projects in Los Angeles. From 1998 to 2003, he served as artistic director of New York’s Classic Stage Co. Before that, Edelstein was primarily a freelance director.

Over the course of his career, Edelstein has directed almost half of Shakespeare’s works and directed or produced shows involving such stars as Al Pacino, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeffrey Wright and Kevin Kline. His final Public project, the world premiere of Nathan Englander’s play “The Twenty-Seventh Man,” opens next month.

Edelstein said the Old Globe’s distinguished history and breadth of artistic mission were among the key factors that attracted him to the position.

“It’s hard to find a place in New York that has the kind of broad aesthetic and the broad base of material that the Globe does,” Edelstein said. “That’s part of what makes the opportunity so exciting.

“It’s one of the country’s great theaters. There’s just no doubt about that. You make a list of the Top 10 regional theaters in the United States, and the Globe is on it. So the notion that the chair was open was just extremely attractive to me, because it is such an important part of the ecology of the American theater.”